PureHustle // 2019 Journey

[PureHustle]

Howdy folks,

Time for me to create a new journey. The goal is to build out a network of sites that earn money via SEO. I have had a few sites that are sitting around with 5-10 pages that bring me $XXX/mo passively for years. They've been really stable and have turned out to be the most reliable stream of income I have. Not a ton of money comes in, but it does consistently. I will follow this process to multiply the income streams across multiple sites.

You might have seen me around from time to time, I've created a few journeys over the years. This one is different-

I'm outsourcing and not putting the entire workload on my back. I currently do not have a hard end-date for this project. the idea is to invest and grow the network.

I've started this thread for accountability reasons and to help those who raise questions. consider this more of a whitehat, long-term journey.


Overview:
Build Multiple Affiliate/CPA sites targetting roughly 50-200 keywords long-tail each (but only have 50% buyer-intent keywords). Heres my super high-level process:
1. Keyword research/competitor analysis
2. outsource content
3. handle on-site SEO + Off-site SEO (keep improving onsite & building/buying links until I rank).

Lets begin!

 

[PureHustle]

Update #1: Site 1
This update is dedicated to Site #1. past few weeks i've been working on the site , getting about 5k words/wk added to the site. i am planning to keep this going until i get all 50 kw on the site. then i want to fill out the site with filler content. fix on-site seo. and then start an aggressive link-building campaign to get it ranking. then set and forget

Overview:

• affiliate site.
• 150/day traffic

Content:

• 36/50 Articles Posted

SEO:
SEO needs to be improved. once I get all articles posted ill go through each page with a fine-tooth comb and optimize further.

To Do:

• Get all 50 articles up on the site
• figure out 'filler content strategy' to make the website not all targetting buyer-intent kw.
• perfect on-site SEO
• build at least 1 backlink per day to the site.
• work on caching optimizations

 

[dandan594594]

Good luck! I'm starting my affiliate site on the 1st of February, and am planning a similar strategy.

 

[Topiano]

Welcome @PureHustle ! I'm a big fan of your Journeys .... Let ROLLLLL !!

 

[rudrapada]

I watched your previous journeys man,
I am gonna watch this one too.
All the best!

 

[SpawneR]

Good luck OP, will watch this since I'm about to start CPA also

 

[milluki zolydck]

post like this gets me inspired with my baby steps towards the big goal... Goodluck OP

 

[PureHustle]

Update #2: Baby Steps!
Site #1

Technical - Quick Wins:

• Moved Hosting -> I went from Shared Hosting over to a digital ocean droplet. So much faster. (I might do a technical write-up on this if there is enough demand. $5 a month hosting for unlimited domains and traditionally faster hosting is awesome lol).
• AMP integration -> I found a nice AMP plugin for WP, and it works nicely. Will really help impove my mobile speeds.
• Image compression -> I forgot to compress my images to reduce file size, so this helped a bit.
• W3 Total Cache & CDN configuration -> Spent the time correctly setting up caching layers to site #1. (The guy was nice enough to include an import file. I used that and modify to my likings. Just update the Cloudflare settings because his site/API key are inside the import file).

Doing these few things reduced my load time by more than 50% and gave me an awesome loading score from Uncle Google.

SEO - Quick Wins

• Contextual inner-linking -> i've started adding 1-5 internal links between posts, pages, categories throughout the site.
• Building Links -> I've started to slowly build out links. I want to get a few hundred new referring domains to the site. Its currently rocking ~280 referring domains, but i'd like to get that higher before pumping out some Press releases and guest posts.

What's Next (shift focus to optimization/SEO)

• Upload last 7 articles to the site ->I have 7 more articles in cue from my writer. Once these are done, i'll be successfully done adding money-content to my site. I'll need to start adding "filler" content. AKA non-buyer-intent content.
• On-page perfection -> I'll comb through each page and do a quick check against moz's on-site grader and fix the issues that arise.
• Continue to build backlinks and get ready for Press Release Syndication/Guest Posting.

Site #2:

Site Introduction:
As we start to get closer to finishing site #1, I'm prepping everything for site #2. This will also be an affiliate site. site is setup with WP and a theme. much more work to do. will update more on this moving forward.​

 

[guntur9090]

do you have your journey that make you $xxx/month?

 

[Social God]

Good look on your journey bro! Awesome username!

 

[PureHustle]

Update #3
Site #1 Updates - 90% Done
This will likely be my last update for site #1 as its getting close to done and i really dont have much more info to share here. I will just be adding content, perfecting on-site SEO, and running an evergreen off-site SEO campaign.

• Site Content - Money Content Done, Now focus on non-commercial content.
  • 
    
    
  • All Money Content is added to the site. Now I will schedule weekly "blog posts" that will help dilute the site from being strictly money posts.
• On Site SEO - Almost Done
  • Need to finish all internal linking between the 60 posts
  • Need to add meta descriptions to all posts
  • Need to fix the image SEO on each post
  • Need to test adding external (no-follow) links to other niche sites. see if google will give me a boost from 'sharing the love'
• Off Site SEO - In Progress
  • Offsite SEO never ends in my mind. I'll be syndicating a press release and scheduling monthly guest posts for this site.

Site #2 Updates
Nothing major to report here yet. I have the site up, I've done the keyword research. Now i need to get the content and start building out the pages. I'm starting to work on my foundational off-site SEO here with web 2.0's, niche-relevant blog comments, and just posting a few occasional backlinks to get some fresh links to the site. I'll have more here on the next update!

 

[PureHustle]

Long overdue Update #4 -

Overview
i've been focusing on site #1.

Site #2 now has a dedicated writer, and im starting to grow (and perfect) the on-site seo. im not monetizing with Amazon, so its different by nature. it will take longer and more $$ to rank, so im being patient and getting a ton of content on site #2 first.

Back to site #1 - It took some time to find some quality, long-term writers that understand how to meet my high needs. We've been trending positive month-over-month in both traffic and revenue.

Traffic - continuing to see a steady increase in traffic

Revenue - sharp increase in revenue month-over-month.

What I've been up to

• Finding long-term content writers. I have very high standards for my content and i had to go through a sifting process which took a bit. I've found a handful of writers that are killing it.
• Optimizing performance. The site needed to be moved to a faster hosting plan, and i've incorporated a few 'techy' upgrades including intense caching, cdn layer, image compression, and more.
• Keyword research. its been said a thousand times on this site and ill say it again - keyword research is so fckin important. I've been heavily sifting through keywords, doing competitor analysis, and content gap analysis to find opportunities in the marketplace.
• Optimizing existing content. this includes your traditional on-site stuff as well as internally linking throughout the large number of posts.
• UX reporting & A/B Testing. this sounds intense but its really not. its just a matter of using tools out there (like hotjar) to capture the users experience on my site. where i see pain-points i address. When i see a pain-point i consider a/b testing (google optimize for example).

Whats Next

• I want to continue to grow site #1 and help site #2 grow up properly. Heavily focusing on on-site SEO and optimizing the shit out of my pages, from an SEO perspective, content length perspective, and UX perspective.
• i want to start diversifying traffic from a single source - looking into ads, social, and more. i need to run the numbers and see the profitability on many of the kw's ive considered on ppc/social bidding.

• Exit strategy - The main goal for site #1 is to hit $1k a month consistently and build out an email list bigger than what it is now. Im starting to plan out my exit strategy (sell the site) within the next 6 months to 1 year out, and so im trying to ensure i have the most value i can add possible to the buyer. email list is a plus in my mind .
• Site #2 needs a ton of work. I need 50k more words on the site. I need to really focus on on-site optimization and start focusing on building out a long-term backlnk strategy.

Whats Working

• Paying your writers properly and treating them like humans - the quality of your content really does matter. i pay my writers way more than i probably should. but they've become loyal and they're good at what they do. I encourage those who hire writers to stop scraping the bottom of the barrel and find talent that will stick with you fror the long-run. good content > shitty content.
• re-investing every last cent you make - both in stuff that i know works, and testing. usually i end up wasting a ton of money on testing new ideas, but when you find something that works, double down on it.
• long-lasting, tried and true on-site SEO & white-hat SEO - i used to play the short game and would get burned when i took a penalty from G. Now i focus on adding value to the reader and improving the experience using white-hat techniques. im in it for the long-run and so should you.

TLDR; - small, consistent steps forward!

 

[Zatoichi]

What is your reasoning to sell the webiste (I estimate you may get around 30.000 USD if everything goes like you planned) compared to retaining it like a constant stream of income for yourself?

By the way, congratulations on your success, amazing progress!

 

[yasin.wazza10]

What does the home page of your money site look like ?
A static page with some content or latest posts listed one below other ?

Best Of Luck on your journey !

 

[PureHustle]

No Real update - just wanted to share success (and hope to inspire some of you). 100k club in AZON YTD and 100k words added to one of the sites this year!


Azon

Site content

 

[fullwall3t]

Where did you learn how to optimize your theme? Can you send me some links please?
Also can you share with us what theme you are using?
And what is your pingdom performence?
Anyway good luck, but it seems that you don't even need that
Thanks

 

[smurloftheburl]

No Real update - just wanted to share success (and hope to inspire some of you). 100k club in AZON YTD and 100k words added to one of the sites this year!


Azon

Site content

WOW! You really killing it! Great Work!

 

[Satal]

I'd never thought of moving my hosting to Digital Ocean. How do you find it? Do you have any recommendations for anyone else thinking about it? (I've got 11 months left on my hosting plan but may make the jump afterwards).

 

[aristocratic]

Wanted to ask something regarding Amazon Affiliate site.
After how long did you start seeing $$$ on your bank?
100k order after how many months?

 

[Nova90]

I'd never thought of moving my hosting to Digital Ocean. How do you find it? Do you have any recommendations for anyone else thinking about it? (I've got 11 months left on my hosting plan but may make the jump afterwards).

DO is dope if you know how to setup servers and such. Easy to scale small sites to larger ones, provides decent backups for $1/month.

Great update OP though. 100K sales is amazing!